- Introduction: What is UX Design?
- Who is a UX Designer?
- UX Designer Roles & Responsibilities
- UI Vs UX: What’s the Difference?
- Key Similarities Between UI and UX Designers
- Skills Required To Become A UX Designer
- Advantages of a Career in User Experience Design
- UX Designer Salary Trends in India & the US
- Popular UX Design Courses by Great Learning
- To Conclude
Introduction: What is UX Design?
A user experience occurs whenever you are interacting with a product or service. This experience could include browsing through a mobile app, surfing the web, trying on a hat at a store, or using web check-in for flights.
User experience is all about interaction, and a UX design is incorporated to make that experience smooth and efficient.
Design thinking on your mind? Transform businesses and products through this ever-so-comprehensive Design Thinking course.
Did you know that approximately 70% of online businesses fail to be successful because of reports of bad usability?
To sum up, The idea of creating (digital or physical) products that are functional, simple to use, and delightful to interact with is known as user experience design. It’s all about improving people’s experiences when dealing with your product and ensuring that they gain interest in what you’re offering.
Who is a UX Designer?
The job of a user experience designer is to make a product or service functional, efficient, and convenient. The end goal for any UX designer is to factor in what the user might be expecting and enhance their ease of use. Therefore, they have to understand what would be the best for the user and what can be done to enhance the user experience.
Now, we have discussed the user experience. What about the business? It is also a UX designer’s responsibility to meet the business requirements. They have to plan strategically to generate revenue and retain loyal customers. So, what does a UX designer do, let us find out!
UX Designer Roles & Responsibilities
- Interacting with the clients to understand their requirements.
- Incorporating online tools to carry out user research and gather data.
- Communicating the user expectations to internal and external stakeholders.
- Evaluating the existing applications and ensuring if it’s effective and user-friendly.
- Gathering user feedback and making improvements to enhance the user experience.
- Conducting user testing on websites, apps, etc.
- Working alongside creative heads and designers to visually enhance the final product.
- Create and communicate design ideas and prototypes to the development team.
- Developing design wireframes, sitemaps, storyboards, etc.
- Running competitor and end-user analysis.
UI Vs UX: What’s the Difference?
Of course, many individuals use UX (User Experience) & UI (User Interface) interchangeably. However, UI is just a part of UX along with usability.
Therefore, there is a significant difference between UI and UX, and one should not use the terms interchangeably.
| Points of Difference | User Experience (UX) | User Interface (UI) |
| Definition | It is the process by which design teams develop products that give users practical and relevant experiences. | It is the process of designing interfaces in software or digital devices focusing on aesthetics or appearance. |
| Development Stage | Develops the user journey. | Creates the visual structure according to the user journey requirements. |
| Role | To carry out research, gather user feedback, and communicate the requirements to internal and external stakeholders. | Part of the UX design team. |
| Focus | User-friendliness | Look and feel of a product |
| End-goal | Make the product efficient and easy to use. | Make the product aesthetically appealing and optimized. |
| Offering | Design solutions that user encounters while browsing the product. | A blend of font style, colour palettes, visual graphics, buttons, and menu. |
| Application | Physical & digital products | Digital products only |
Key Similarities Between UI and UX Designers
We often hear about job profiles like UI/UX designers. But, what does a UI/UX designer do?
UI/UX designers are in charge of the end-to-end user experience. They strive to improve the product experience for new as well as existing products.
Subsequently, this improvement could be accomplished by making the product efficient, easier to use, and more accessible.
In reality, UI/UX design incorporates the complete user experience at its core. This covers packing, buying process, and product shipping in the case of a physical item. It also includes technical issues and accessibility for an online product.
Can you be both a UI and UX designer?
The differences between UX and UI designers can be seen overlapping, and many companies have chosen to merge both responsibilities into one, giving individuals additional opportunities to improve and grow their expertise in areas where they are not as proficient.
So when we talk about introducing a user-friendly product, you’ll need qualities of both to make sure that people can engage with your product quickly and efficiently. Therefore, to answer this question, you can be both a UI designer and a UX designer.
Also Read: UI, UX, and Product Design: Understand the Difference
Skills Required To Become A UX Designer
So far we have learned a great deal about UX design and how it differs from UI design. Let’s look at skills to understand if you have what it takes to become a ux designer.
Research
The research comes in handy to understand the user’s needs and expectations. As a result, UX Designers must be well-versed in research methodology, including qualitative and quantitative data collection, and how to organize, execute, and understand and evaluate research findings.
Prototyping & Wireframing
On the whole, UX Designers must thoroughly understand how people browse and engage with information flows. To apply this knowledge to product design, they must also be skilled at prototyping and wireframing. There are various tools to incorporate to make the ideas come to reality.
Usability Testing
You will have to carry out user testing as you build prototypes to ensure that your design options are appropriate. On the whole, the purpose is to discover any usability issues, gather qualitative and quantitative data, and assess how satisfied the end-users are with the product.
Visual Communication
When you need to build dynamic prototypes and layouts that have a meaningful impact on users, getting a grip on your UI design skills will come in handy.
Visual communication in design encompasses everything from white space to visual graphics, which subsequently makes components appear interactive and reduces the need for text-based elements. Visual communication includes
- Color palette
- Layout & designs
- Typography
- Images & videos
Collaboration
Integrating the insights of developers and internal and external stakeholders is an essential component of effective UX design. So, to build an efficient end product, UX designers must successfully provide and obtain feedback, create & discuss ideas, and combine the knowledge and needs of everyone engaged in a project.
Communication
Collaboration and communication are inextricably linked. And it won’t simply be your team with whom you’ll have to interact with. When performing user research, good communication skills assist you in acquiring more relevant feedback. It will also help you understand the client’s needs and requirements.
User Empathy
The art of comprehending and experiencing the feelings of others is known as empathy. Noticeably, the term “user experience” refers to the importance of providing a great user experience. Hence, the finest UX designers spend time getting to know individuals and their preferences. Designers can create a product that truly engages and satisfies end customers only if they thoroughly understand their needs.
Coding
While it isn’t mandatory, a UX Designer’s coding knowledge will help them communicate more effectively with the developers. Having a fair idea of application development along with basic languages like JavaScript, CSS, and HTML will go a long way. This will have you look more marketable while allowing you to expand your scope.
Advantages of a Career in User Experience Design
There are pros and cons for every field. So, what are the advantages of a career in UI/UX design? Let us see if it’s even worth it to try your hands in user experience design.
You will get hands-on design skills
As the name suggests, UX Design is a blend of strategies and tools to help a designer solve a user problem. During your UX Designer career, you can acquire skills like
- User research
- Prototyping and wireframing
- Usability testing
- Communication & collaboration
You will enhance your creative and logical side
The interplay between creativity and logic is among the most intriguing and unique characteristics of the UX design career. You will come up with logic to present to the user to solve their problems. However, practicality isn’t all we need; solutions must also be innovative– they should be usable, functional, and aesthetically pleasing.
You get to work with cutting-edge technologies
A future in UX design will place you at the cutting edge of technology transformation, a stimulating area where new ideas and technologies arise daily. There will be a high demand for UX designers who specialize in the user experience of AR/VR and voice-based interfaces in the coming decades. So, now would be an excellent time to get into a booming career as a UX designer.
You will assist in business success and revenue generation
You’ll be able to pinpoint and optimize all possibilities for converting users by planning their journey ahead of time. You can use various tools and strategies to understand what users enjoy and work on what’s being ignored. Planning ways to improve engagement and position CTA’s is one way for growth and revenue generation.
You will get unlimited growth opportunities and earning potential
Being a UX designer means that you can always switch your career from other fields such as graphic design, web designer, marketing, software development, and more. And undoubtedly, the UX designer salary in India is lucrative, going up to 20 LPA with years of experience and skills acquired. You ca also take up a Graphic Design Course Online to help you learn more about graphic design.
You will have access to affordable UX Design courses.
You will find brilliant courses to help streamline your UX design career journey. There are multiple resources available on the internet. We will throw some light on available UX design courses in the later section of this blog.
UX Designer Salary Trends in India & the US
Now that we have a basic idea of what UX design is all about, let’s look at its salary trends.
Salary based on experience
| India | US | |
| Beginner (<1 yr) | 4.33 LPA | $64,890 |
| Intermediate (1-4 yrs) | 5.79 LPA | $73,081 |
| Experienced (5-9 yrs) | 10 LPA | $85,034 |
UX designer salary in India: User Experience Design professional with less than 1-year experience can expect approximately 4.33 LPA. A User Experience Designer with 1-4 years of experience can expect 5.79 LPA whereas someone with 5-9 years of experience can expect a whopping 10 LPA. Subsequently, for a User experience Design professional with 10-19 years of Experience, 12.33 LPA is the average.
Salary based on the company
Salary in the US, based on the company:
| Company | Average Salary Per Annum |
| $130,171 | |
| Amazon | $113,044 |
| Microsoft | $111,639 |
Salary in India, based on the company:
| Company | Average Salary Per Annum |
| SAP Labs | 12 LPA |
| Accenture | 10 LPA |
| TCS | 9 LPA |
| Infosys | 7.2 LPA |
Popular UX Design Courses by Great Learning
You simplify things for yourself when you take help from a professional. Therefore, enrolling yourself in a well-structured course or degree program will boost your learning. In addition, the more you learn, the better, and earning certifications from credible sources will always be a feather in your cap. So, are you looking for UX design certifications or degrees?
Post Graduate Program in User Experience Design by IIT Bombay
The modules of the curriculum cover the entire User Experience process of User Research and Analysis, UX Design Creation, Design Testing, and Implementation. The pedagogy will be highly interactive by leveraging technology and will consist of a judicious blend of lectures and learning by doing. Also, apart from individual assignments, the participants will work on an immersive group project. Therefore, this is a great opportunity to apply the concepts and methods learned throughout the program in a project that can be showcased in a design portfolio.
User Experience Design Career Path
We have also laid out various career paths for UX designers that will help you create a path for yourself. Have a look and enroll yourself in these free-of-cost UX design programs. Explore the career paths to become:
- A UX Designer
- A User Experience Writer
- A Visual Designer
- A UX Researcher
- A UI Developer
Free UX Design Courses
Apart from the UX design career paths, we also have separate courses that you can take one by one.
UI/UX Design: Learn the basics of UI/UX concepts, the difference between them, wireframing, prototyping, user testing, etc. Subsequently, you will be taking the first step towards a career in UI/UX.
UX Portfolio: In this course, you will be learning the concept of UX, understanding how UX plays a crucial role in the user experience explaining why is it important to have a UX portfolio, and also teaching how to create a portfolio.
How to get a UX job in India: So, what are the prospects of a UX job in the market? Which kinds of companies are looking for UX designers? What are the different roles? What are the different salaries in this field? Will you be able to get a UX job? Get answers to these questions in this course.
UX Design portfolio for Freshers: Learn how to create a UX Design portfolio. This course, in fact, will teach you how to attract customers by providing a visually appealing and smooth functional experience.
To Conclude
To sum up, a career in UX design is full of opportunities, purpose, and advancement. So, with a widespread UX skills demand, high salaries, minimal competitive dynamics, and the ability to work from anywhere, 2022 is the ideal year to start exploring this career track. We have also hooked you up with numerous UX design courses that will, undoubtedly, have you upskill for the job without leaving the comfort of your home or burning a hole in your pockets.
